| Boris Ponomarev | |
| Nationality: | Russian |
| Citizenship: | Soviet |
| Office: | Head of the International Department of the Central Committee |
| Term Start: | 21 February 1957 |
| Term End: | 25 February 1986 |
| Predecessor: | Post established (himself as Department for Relations with Foreign Communist Parties head) |
| Successor: | Anatoly Dobrynin |
| Office1: | Head of the Department for Relations with Foreign Communist Parties of the Central Committee |
| Term Start1: | 9 December 1955 |
| Term End1: | 21 February 1957 |
| Predecessor1: | Mikhail Suslov |
| Successor1: | Post abolished (himself as International Department head and Yuri Andropov as Department for Relations with the Communist and Workers' Parties of the Socialist Countries head) |
| Office2: | Candidate member of the 24th, 25th, 26th Politburo |
| Term Start2: | 19 May 1972 |
| Term End2: | 25 February 1986 |
| Office3: | Member of the 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th Secretariat |
| Term Start3: | 31 October 1961 |
| Term End3: | 25 February 1985 |
| Birth Date: | 17 January 1905 |
| Birth Place: | Zaraysk, Ryazan Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Death Place: | Moscow, Russia |
| Residence: | Kutuzovsky Prospekt |
| Party: | Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1919–1991) |
| Profession: | Politician, historian |
| Native Name Lang: | ru |
Boris Nikolayevich Ponomarev (Russian: Бори́с Никола́евич Пономарёв; 17 January 1905 – 21 December 1995) was a Soviet politician, ideologist, historian and member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. His patron in his rise to the Politburo was Mikhail Suslov.
His name would more accurately be transliterated as "Ponomaryov," though the form "Ponomarev" has become more frequent.
From 1955 to 1986, Ponomarev was chief of the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee. He occupied an office within Central Committee headquarters until the 1991 August coup, which he is said to have supported.
In 1962, Ponomarev wrote an updated state history of the CPSU to replace Stalin's 1938 History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) as part of the Khrushchev Thaw.[1]
His December 1962 speech at the All-Union Conference of Historians was a major turning point in the development of Soviet historiography.[2]